J. F. Campbell Collection > Minstrelsy of the Scottish border > Volume 1

C INTRODUCTION.
ritual enemies, were yet more common than those
intended to cure corporeal complaints. This is not
surprising, as a fantastic remedy well suited an ima-
ginary disease.
There were, upon the Borders, many consecra-
ted wells, for resorting to which the people's cre-
dulity is severely censured by a worthy physician
of the seventeenth century, who himself beheved
in a shower of living herrings having fallen near
Dumfries. " Many run superstitiously to other
" wells, and there obtain, as they imagine, health
" and advantage ; and there they offer bread and
" cheese, or money, by throwing them into the
" well." In another part of the MS. occurs the
following passage : "In the bounds of the lands
" of Eccles, belonging to a lyneage of the name
*' of Maitland, there is a loch called the Dowloch,
" of old resorted to with much superstition, as me-
" dicinal both for men and beasts, and that with
" such ceremonies, as are shrewdli/ suspected to have
" been begun with witchcraft, and mcreased after-
" ward by magical directions : For, burying of a
ously assured the editor, that he ascribed his cure to putting
the affected finger into the mouth of an Irish mare.
2